Red Sonja: Vulture's Circle #5 - A Review

In my review of Red Sonja: Vulture's Circle #4 , I said I was done with this series. Ultimately, I decided to go ahead and pick up the conclusion. Not out of some blind hope that it might somehow make-up for old mistakes in the final chapter but because the cover art was amazing.


That's about the only nice thing I can say about this book, apart from the color art by Adriano Augusto being good.  The story is still a mess, with Red Sonja herself replaced by a blood-thirsty avatar of her goddess. The artwork is unintentionally hilarious, with Fritz Casas unable to agree upon Sonja's figure from panel to panel, drawing a voluptuous valkyrie and an emaciated waif with visible ribs in the next. And the action scenes are cluttered and difficult to follow.

I love how blasé the king of Zingara is about a naked redhead on fire standing before him.

Ultimately, this is just another Red Sonja mini-series that was penned only to be forgotten. If you're looking for a good Red Sonja story, check out the current monthly title by Gail Simone. Or the new Swords of Sorrow mini-series.

Red Sonja: Vulture's Circle #4 - A Review

Red Sonja is dead! Replaced by a being known as The Queen of Swords, this avatar of The Red Goddess must journey to Stygia with Sonja's companions in search of answers on how to defeat the dread demigod Sutekh. But they had best be swift, for the armies of Set are already at the gates of Aquilonia - the only civilized nation yet to fall to the will of Sutekh!


Regular readers will recall some months back I reviewed a Red Sonja mini-series called The Black Tower. Featuring time-travel, robots, light-sabers and flying saucers, I declared that while it might not be the worst Red Sonja comic ever written it was certainly the most incongruous in regards to the Robert Howard oeuvre and the sword-and-sorcery aesthetic.

With this issue, Vulture's Circle has become worse than that series. Much worse. And while I've come to expect this sort of thing from any story Luke Liberman is involved in writing (i.e. He Who Has Been Trying And Failing For A Decade To Sell Us On His Anti-Hero Version of Thulsa Doom), even I never anticipated something this antithetical to the characters involved.

It does pose something of an interesting question for debate - which is the more anathema concept from the perspective of the REH purist? That the proud king of Aquilonia should surrender his armies and subjects into the hands of the Stygians as in the page above? Or that the largely indifferent gods of the Hyboria age should be invoked to create a holy god-slaying sword as in the page below?


The art by Fritz Casas does offer one bit of hope. Despite last issue making lawyer-friendly jokes about the Aquilonian king still owing Red Sonja a favor and the prominence placed on said king in this issue, the artwork makes it clear that this king is not the sullen-faced barbarian we were expecting. Which, in retrospect, makes sense, as he was always inclined to lead from the front and would likely face an army lead by a demigod personally. Yet why make the joke last issue if this was not meant to be a reference to King Conan?

In the end, it matters little. I am done with this Red Sonja series. In truth, it can't even be called a Red Sonja story now that Sonja has been replaced by The Queen of Swords. And unlike The Black Tower, it can't be considered a curiosity worth of mockery.

Red Sonja: Vulture's Circle #3 - A Review

With her school for warrior women destroyed and the forces of Sutekh posed to overtake the northern Hyborian continent, Sonja reluctantly scatters her students to spread word of the coming evil. A solution may be found by communing with the gods themselves. But is Sonja ready to sacrifice the life she has built for herself or to face the goddess she has spurned for so long?


It is unfortunate that after an interesting second chapter that put a truly unique spin on the Red Sonja legend that this third chapter should sink into the malaise that damns so many mini-series starring the Scourge of Hyrkania. I had thought this series based on the more modern take, where Sonja is not beholden to the whims of a goddess and she fights merely because someone must.

Here we learn that Sonja has been taken to the temple of Scathach since childhood. This is, I think, the first time any reference has been made anywhere to Scathach having temples. The implication in previous Sonja stories has been that she was an obscure goddess who chose her champions directly and didn't bother with such finery.

And it seems curious that Sonja's father - by most accounts an ex-warrior who took little pleasure in the soldier's life and gladly became a farmer - would be taking his daughter to the temple of a goddess who represented everything he was leaving behind or that Sonja's mother - who was trying to force the tomboy Sonja into behaving as a girl should - would ever agree to Sonja going to such a place. But whatever.

The real problem comes with the end of this issue, where the Luke Liberman influence becomes most clear and artist Fritz Casas is once again allowed to indulge himself with a little cheesecake.  Now, I have no objection to a little skin in a sword-and-sorcery comic.  It's a part of the fun of the genre.



That being said, depicting Sonja - now a full avatar of Scathach - as naked save for a discrete layer of fire (With flames that grow curiously thinner whenever we view Sonja from behind) seems a little gratuitous. At the very least, it eliminates Sonja's agency and very little is made of the choice she apparently makes without discussing things with the alleged love of her life.

Oh, do you remember him? The man who inspired Red Sonja to give up her life of wandering?  I'm pretty sure they mentioned his name at some point. But the fact that this character is so unmemorable points to the larger problem with this series. There is a saga just waiting to be told about how Sonja didn't just give up her life of adventure for this man - she defied a god oath for her love of him!

Alas, this man is given no more thought than the lawyer-friendly shout out to Conan - aka the unnamed King of Aquilonia who owes Sonja a favor - as we rush to more boobs and blood. This is typical for Red Sonja stories, I know. But this one had been shaping up to be far better.

Red Sonja: Vulture's Circle #2 - A Review

The Son of Set - Sutekh the Unclean - has risen!  Now an army of the undead parades before a north-bound army of the conquered Southern nations of Hyboria, hell-bent on enslaving the free nations and spilling enough blood to free Set from his celestial prison.  Their next target?  A school that trains young women to become warriors, run by a woman warrior long retired to the role of Sensei. But for the sake of the world, Red Sonja must fight once more!


A remarkable thing about Red Sonja: Vulture's Circle #2 is that it recaps the action of the first issue as part of its narration.  It is rare to see that done these days in a monthly series, let alone a mini-series such as this.  It's a nice touch and the script by Nancy A. Collins and Luke Leiberman handles it naturally. It also reveals a number of interesting details about Sonja's life before this and how she found love with another unconventional figure - a male medic who preferred healing to swordplay. One wishes we could see more stories set in this continuity in the future, as it's such a novel change from the usual Red Sonja tale.


Of course no Red Sonja tale would be complete without a little action and this issue does contain that!  The fight scenes by Fritz Casas are well-depicted and well-blocked. The only real flaw in the artwork is that many of the smaller panels lack the vivid detail that Casas packs into his full-page spreads.  Thankfully, the line-work is never busy despite that detailing.

Red Sonja: Vulture's Circle #1 - A Review

It has been some years since Red Sonja tread the jeweled thrones of the world under her booted feet. She has traded her life of adventure for one of simpler pleasures and the joys of teaching the next generation of young warrior women. But when a demon rears its' ugly head in a nearby village and rumors speak of the Son of Set come to Hyboria to open the way for his father from the Outer Dark, Sonja may have to take to the open road one last time.


Red Sonja: Vulture's Circle #1 gives us a glimpse at the future of Red Sonja.  A future that is thankfully free of robots and laser guns, unlike some other comics about an older Red Sonja we won't mention. Thankfully, Nancy A. Collins - who wrote the excellent Red Sonja: Berserker - seems to be reigning in the worst impulses of Luke Lieberman, whose previous Red Sonja stories have left much to be desired.

Unfortunately, the artwork for this issue seems conflicted on a number of levels.  Frtiz Casas - who also worked on Red Sonja: Berserker - is a skilled artist with a good eye for action.  Unfortunately, there are some points where the artwork doesn't quite match the script.  Casas' Sonja, for instance, seems remarkably free of scars from what we see of her her body... and we see quite a bit of it!  This doesn't match up with Sonja's monologue about the scars on the body.  Indeed, the only visual signs of Sonja's advanced age are her crimson locks being somewhat faded and tinged with grey - a wonderful effect on the part of color artist Adriano Augusto.



The biggest problem with this issue is the apparently random censorship of the artwork. The opening pages (available here) depict a scene in which a temple virgin is magically impregnated and forced to give birth to a snake demon even as the life is sucked from her body. It is a horrific moment and the artwork is suitably disturbing. And yet, some censor apparently found the idea of uncovered women's nipples more disturbing than a the images of a young woman rotting away to nothing even as her belly bloats like an enormous egg!

How else do you explain the hapless virgin - and Sonja when we first see her getting out of bed later in the issue - having their breasts covered with oddly precise black dots that do not match the inking or shading in the rest of the panel?  There is no explanation, save that even on a 16+ book, someone is perfectly happy to depict a man's throat being ripped-out in vivid detail in a close-up panel but afraid that people will complain about the sight of bared breasts!  I am no prude nor pervert but it seems a silly division to me and the book suffers for the disparity.

Red Sonja: Berserker - A Review

Red Sonja: Berserker is proof that a work of fiction can be enjoyable while still being predictable.  Canny readers will quickly recognize the classic tale that this story it is based on.  However, they will enjoy this comic in spite of that because of what writer Nancy A. Collins adds to the mix to turn it into a legend of Red Sonja.

Collins writes a great Sonja and her script is notable in that it seems to answer a question than some fans have speculated on since Gail Simone's recent revamp of the Red Sonja series - did Sonja, in this reality, take an oath of chastity to a goddess in exchange for her amazing fighting skills?


Simone's take on Sonja's childhood suggested she was a capable fighter without such an oath and did not depict any vision of any goddess as she retold the story of how Sonja's family was killed.  Likewise, Collins presents us with a Sonja who speaks openly of drinking dry the first tavern she comes to, "...And the same goes for the first man who takes my fancy."  So much for the famous oath of chastity, save to men who can best her in combat. 

Of course Sonja is still a lady of standards and reacts badly to any man who calls her a whore, much less tries to hire her as one!  That leads us to the one thing about this book that I didn't enjoy.  Sonja gets called a harlot or some variant of that word so frequently that it is comical.  Given enough friends, you could drink a tavern dry if you made a drinking game out of doing a shot every time someone in this comic calls Sonja a whore, treats her like one or otherwise suggests she is a loose woman of negotiable affection. 



Artist Fritz Casas is an old hand at drawing Red Sonja stories, having previously worked on Queen Sonja.  His Sonja is somewhat inconsistent facially, with her nose changing somewhat between panels.  Still, any artist who depicts Sonja as dressing sensibly in cold climates cannot be wholly without merit.  Casas does a fine job of depicting the action and his story-flow from panel to panel is quite good.

Bottom Line: This is an enjoyable comic and a must-read for all Red Sonja fans.  The story is a bit predictable and the artwork a bit odd at times.  Yet the final product is more than the sum of its part.

Legends Of Red Sonja #1 - A Review

And so it was that Gail Simone, having conquered the sales charts with her newly revamped Red Sonja title, decided to share the bounty of her questing with her fellow Valkyries.  Hither come Legends of Red Sonja - an anthology book written entirely by female writers.  Some of them experienced comic writers.  Some of them experienced writers in other media.  All of them having a deep respect for The She-Devil of Hyrkania.  Let me tell you of the book of high adventure!


The introduction of the book provides us with our first exposure to a mercenary band known as The Grey Riders.  Some of their number hunt for Red Sonja in the name of justice.  Some of them hunt her for the price on her head.  Still others seek revenge, having been wronged by Red Sonja personally in the past.  Gail Simone writes this frame story and slowly sets about exposing us to the various members of the Grey Riders with her usual humor.  Jack Jadson, most recently seen on the Red Sonja: Unchained mini-series, illustrates these scenes with the same level of skill and detail he showed there.


Horror author Nancy A. Collins writes the first chapter of the issue - a tale told by the Stygian priest/assassin Eles about his own reasons for seeking out Red Sonja..  Set at an early point in Sonja's career, this story details Sonja's efforts to steal from a Stygian temple.  Naturally, things don't go according to plan and Sonja must fight her way past the temple's many guardians.  The story is fairly standard as far as Red Sonja stories go but it is enjoyable nonetheless and ably illustrated by Noah Salonga.


The final chapter by Devin Grayson is the weakest point of the issue, but it is also by no means unenjoyable.  Told from the viewpoint of a ship's captain who The Grey Riders question about Sonja's whereabouts, the tale is a long and rambling affair.  Indeed, more attention is paid to an unnamed sorceress than Sonja, who must fight the monster that said sorceress summons.  Thankfully, the action is engaging once it finally begins and the artwork of Carla Speed McNeil conveys that action quite well.

Overall, this series is a worthy contribution to the the Red Sonja oeuvre.  Fans of Simone's current Red Sonja title as well as sword and sorcery in general would do well to pick this book up.  It's a great read.